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Your Turn: Screen Play’s best game openings of all time

Bioshock's grand reveal of the city of Rapture has been voted the best video game opening of all time by Screen Play readers.

If there is one thing that lets down a great opening in a game, it is a bloated, padded out game middle. One that seems to go on forever with no end in sight. Hopefully, with a great ending, all can be forgiven. Or, to speak less cryptically, it has been a LONG time since I asked you for top ten lists of your favourite game openings of all time. I didn't intend to take so long to collate the results, but hopefully the final results will make amends!

So without further ado, here it is: The Top Ten Game Openings of All Time as voted by YOU!

10) Fallout 3

"War. War never changes." Fallout 3 was always a tricky proposition. Bethesda had taken a beloved cult franchise and transitioned it to a 3D action RPG, copping a lot of flak from diehard Fallout fans. A great intro was going to be crucial to win hearts and minds, and they certainly didn't disappoint. Nods to the old, with Ron Perlman's narration, and new innovations, with your character's childhood in Vault 101 standing in for character creation, added up to make a truly memorable rebirth for the franchise.

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You said:

"Probably the best integration of introduction and character creation in a RPG"

9) Halo

The original Xbox was a big gamble for Microsoft, and they needed a system seller. Halo stepped into the breach and filled this role admirably. The game's intro saw the player step into the Armour of freshly thawed supersoldier Master Chief. With the spaceship you are on being boarded by hostiles, you need to escape with the ship's AI to the nearby ring world of Halo.

You said:

"…looking up and seeing the other side of the ring"

8) Borderlands

That poor skag never stood a chance. Set to Cage the Elephant's marvellous Ain't no Rest for the Wicked, never has an opening cinematic done more to establish a game's world, its tone and its characters in such an economical fashion. In less than two minutes, we have met the vault hunters, experienced the off-kilter sense of humour of the game, and are chomping at the bit to go explore Pandora. I wouldn't mind to wager that more than a few of you will be going straight to YouTube to watch this again right now.

You said:

"Ain't no rest for the wicked. This feels like a very boring answer, but they nailed the timing on the cinematic, and created exactly the right sense of place and character within a short amount of time."

7) Civilization IV

Prior to this, Civilization games weren't exactly renowned for their intros, but Civ IV changed that. I suspect that this placing is largely owing to what is one of the best pieces of title screen music of all time, the towering Baba Yetu. Composed by Christopher Tin, Baba Yetu became the first piece of music written for a video game to ever win a Grammy.

You Said:

"The opening movie is nice, but the main screen title song - Baba Yetu - is tops."

"Best title screen ever. The slowly revolving globe, the lights of the cities twinkling below, and then growing gleam of dawn on the horizon giving way to a brilliant burst of sun as the fragile planet rolls through space - all set to the spine tingling African beats of 'Baba Yetu'. Goosebumps every time."

6) Medal of Honor: Allied Assault

The third entry in the Medal of Honor series, Allied Assault opened by putting the player into the combat boots of an infantryman storming the beaches of Normandy on D-Day. Owing much to the intro of Saving Private Ryan a few years prior, players were treated to a battle of unprecedented epic scale.

You said:

"Who can forget the edge-of-your-seat intro of the invasion of Normandy Beach leading up to the mission proper?"

"…opening up on D-Day, storming Omaha beach."

5) Uncharted 2

Uncharted 2 took the cinematic ambitions of the first game, and ramped them up to 11. The game opens with Nathan Drake awakening, groggy and wounded, strapped in to a train dangling over the edge of a cliff. A clear homage to the 'cold open' technique many action and adventure films use (notably the Indiana Jones films), Drake's cliffhanging antics plunged players straight into the adventure.

You said:

"Certainly an epic way to grab the player's attention and drag them into Drake's story"

4) Mass Effect 2

What's better than wounding your hero and putting them in mortal peril? How about killing them off before miraculously resurrecting them using SCIENCE™. Mass Effect 2 pulled the audacious stunt of making you die a hero's death before the opening credits, destroying the beloved SSV Normandy in the process. Bioware also deserve kudos for trying to make character selection screens make thematic sense in a sequel.

You Said:

"…to me by far the best opening I've ever seen"

"…Shep dying and being reborn, finally a real reason as to why we had to build all those skills up again."

3) Half-Life 2

Half Life 2 sees us on the trains again, with Gordon Freeman arriving by rail at City 17, home to the Combine Citadel. Your arrival and exit from the city are masterful sequences, giving the illusion of a large explorable world even as you get shepherded through a series of cunningly disguised corridors. Completely eschewing cinematics in favour of in-engine storytelling, Valve built a compelling and real world, and invited us to explore.

You said:

"The intro goes for 20 minutes as you're running through the city. Showing not telling."

2) Half Life

What is it with the trains? This is the third game in the top five to open in a train, but was also the original. Valve broke new ground by completely telling the story in the opening in-game, with the player controlling Gordon Freeman as he arrived at work at the Black Mesa research facility. Gamers were blown away by the detail of the world, with guards chatting amongst themselves, and an extended period of time occurring before the player even receives a weapon. Most of the games on this list have had to aim at the high bar Half Life set. According to Screenies, only one game has managed to surpass it.

You said:

"Nothing has beaten the train ride to work credit sequence/rift tearing opening of Half Life if only because it was the first FPS to do a story intro such as this."

1) Bioshock

How do you beat a train? Why, with an aeroplane and bathysphere of course! From the opening plane-crash, through the arrival at the lighthouse and subsequent bathysphere descent, Andrew Ryan's recorded speech, the first views of Rapture and the arrival and initial exploration of the Stygian underworld the city had become, Bioshock packed more iconic moments into it's opening ten minutes than most game series manage in their entire run. A spiritual descendant of the Half Life 'show don't tell' ethos, Bioshock breaks new ground in its introduction of the world of Rapture, one of the most perfectly realised virtual worlds ever. Bioshock stands tall as Screen Play's greatest game opening of all time.

You Said:

"Yeah, yeah everyone loves it, "that" bathysphere descent"

"Descending into Rapture is one of the most memorable moments in gaming from this generation"

- Andrew "luverly_5pam" Marshall

Screen Play readers can submit articles and game reviews for consideration in Your Turn and Your Review using the email address SPYourTurn@gmail.com. The best blog post published on Screen Play between 1 July and 31 July 2013, as judged by James Dominguez, will win a PS Vita handheld console from Sony Computer Entertainment Australia. This is a wi-fi unit, and has a recommended retail price of $349. The July prize winner will be announced in the first week of August. Only Australian residents are eligible and the judge's decision is final.

12 comments so far

Good list. Can't argue with the top 3. I had half life the original as no1 just cause it did it first.

I had ea skate in my top 5. Even though its was non interactive that intro movie was the perfect thing to see when 1st firing it up.

Commenter

Mongey

Date and time

July 05, 2013, 8:50AM

There are few on my list that didn't make that I think are worth mentioning more from a tech/mechanic point of view rather than story impact.

Star Wars Force Unleashed - I remember when this came out every fan boi wet themselves getting the chance to be Darth and going nuts with the Force.

Golden Eye 007 - the first Dam level created so much atmosphere and introduced the mechanics of a FPS to the console generation.

Mario 64 - Technical marvel of having a real 3D Mario level plus you could play with his face on the title screen!

One game from a story point of view that didn't make it was The Witcher. I highly rate this game and opening cinematic really helped set up the character of Geralt beautifully.

Commenter

Knotpossible

Date and time

July 05, 2013, 9:15AM

Dark Forces: Jedi Knight should have been on there!

Commenter

Sam

Date and time

July 05, 2013, 9:24AM

So so many.

MGS2.

Lylat Wars

Perfect Dark

Eternal Darkness

Resident Evil (REMake)

Starcraft 2 (HOTS)

Commenter

Leigh

Date and time

July 05, 2013, 9:31AM

+1 for MGS2 - one of the best

Commenter

AarghZombies

Date and time

July 08, 2013, 11:48AM

I've always liked the opening to Elder Scrolls: Oblivion. Starting with a oh-so-serious voice over from Patrick Stewart then flinging itself into grandiose music that tells you that you're in a heroic fantasy epic, dammit! Along with a big swooping panoramic around a city to your start point. Man, that sure put me in the mood for saving the world.

Commenter

Kit

Date and time

July 05, 2013, 11:13AM

I think Bioshock Infinite has to be up there if just outside the top ten. I almost cried when you pierced the clouds after seeing flashes of yourself in the window, and it revealed Columbia with a "Hallelujah...". That honky tonk piano playing ghostly notes as you finally burst open the parachute and glide by the floating city. What an opening...

But strong list, I agree with Mass Effect 2 being right up there.

Commenter

Aussiemuser

Date and time

July 05, 2013, 12:26PM

"I wouldn't mind to wager that more than a few of you will be going straight to YouTube to watch this again right now" Haha, read me like a book!

Maybe it was just me, but I was never all that impressed with the Bioshock opening. Unlike the Half Life games, I couldn't wait for the opening to finish so that I could get into the game - it set a scene, sure, but I didn't think it was too captivating. Maybe it was because when I first played it I had an enormous amount of frameskips during that sequence that I didn't experience elsewhere... *shrugs* I've only played a few of the titles on that list, but the ones that I did deserved a spot!

I like Knotpossible's SM64 proposition though - seeing the world in 3D through an awesome landscape pan... that was a good intro! (somewhat marred by the lazy "I've baked you a cake" premise though haha)

Commenter

Schmole

Location

Sydney

Date and time

July 05, 2013, 12:39PM

I didnt realize that it was Ron Pearlman narrating fallout 3. Guess he's had experience as the Russian game designer/mafia boss Constantine Konali in Police Academy 7 mission to Moscow. ......yeah thats right....I went there!!

Commenter

ryno

Date and time

July 05, 2013, 1:05PM

I must admit I have not played a lot of these, but I'm glad to see the two immediate thoughts I had when this question was initially raised are represented here.The opening few moments of Bordelands, teamed up with 'Ain't No Rest for the Wicked' was the perfect scene setter for the game, and hit you like the proverbial truck.As much as I disliked most of the game, the opening for Bioshock was truly memorable and a fabulous feat of 'immersing' the player in the game world.